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Chapter 1: The Development Environment

Apache ANT (from here on referred to as ANT) is a Java tool that uses XML markup to describe tasks and

dependencies in automating the software build process. If you currently do not have ANT installed on

your computer, then you will need to install it. Download the latest distribution from

http://ant.apache

.org/bindownload.cgi

Install ANT in a directory that makes sense with your workﬂow — for example,

C:/ant-

on Windows.

You will also need to add a path to your ANT installation within the Environment Variables.

If you work on a Mac, then you may already have ANT installed. Open a Terminal and type > ant

-version. If you are presented with a ‘‘command not found’’ message, then either you don’t have ANT

installed on your machine or you don’t have a path to the installation

/bin

directory set. If this is the

case, then install ANT in the

/usr/local

directory and perform the following steps.

To add a path to your ANT installation on Windows, follow these steps:

1. Click Start ➪ Control Panel ➪ System.

2. Select the Advanced tab from the menu.

3. Click on Environment Variables.

4. Within the System variables grid, navigate to and double-click on Path.

5. In the Variable Value ﬁeld, add a semicolon (;) and then the path to the

/bin

folder within

your ANT installation directory. For the purposes of this example, that is

;C:

ant

bin

Follow these steps to add a path to your ANT installation on Mac:

1. Open the terminal and type open -e .proﬁle.

2. Add a colon (:) and the path to the

/bin

folder within your ANT installation directory. For

the purposes of this example, that is

/usr/local/ant/bin

Running ANT from the command line requires a build ﬁle within the directory in which it is called.

The ANT build ﬁle is an XML markup describing tasks and dependencies for the build process. Prop-

erty values can also be set in the build ﬁle, enabling you to refer to the value of a property using the

${propertyname}

construct within tasks. A property ﬁle can also be set in the build ﬁle to separate out

the property-value pairs from the build markup.

First create the build ﬁle as it relates to the Hello World application you built previously in this chapter:

1. Enter the following markup in any text editor:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>